Poems They Didn't Teach Us in School

April is National Poetry Month!

Most of the poetry we read in K-12 (or beyond) taught us some vaguely abstract lesson, and to penetrate many of those poems from the canon, we often had to decipher some code that the poems seemed to be hiding from us. "Why don't they just say what they mean?" was an often-heard complaint. In this talk/discussion, we'll read contemporary poems that say what they mean, without forfeiting aesthetics or complexity, and have relevance to our everyday lives. They might be funny, tender, formal, sexy, whip-smart, erudite or brash— or all of these. 

Kenneth Hart has taught writing at New York University for 25 years. From 2013 to 2023, he served as poetry editor for The Florida Review. His poems have been published in Arts & Letters, The Sun, Gulf Coast, Verse Daily, The Writer's Almanac, and elsewhere, and his book reviews and essays have appeared in Green Mountains Review and Journal of New Jersey Poets. He is the 2007 co-winner of the Allen Ginsberg Award, and the recipient of the 2008 editor's prize for New Ohio Review. Hart's book, Uh Oh Time received the 2007 Anhinga Prize for Poetry. He lives in Long Valley, NJ.

This event will be hybrid, in person and on Zoom. To receive the Zoom link, advanced registration is required.